Word Counter Reading Level Feature

One of the tracking features Word Counter provides in the “Details” section on the right side of the tool is a Reading Level. Of all the metrics the tool keeps track of, this is probably the one we receive the most questions about. With that in mind, we felt it would be beneficial to try to explain in a little bit more detail how this metric works and what exactly it means.

First and foremost, Reading Level isn’t a reflection of your writing skill in any way. You may have excellent writing which ranks at a fourth-grade reading level, while you may have substandard writing which ranks at the college reading level. There seems to be an assumption by many that a higher Reading Level rank means the writing is better. That is, a Reading Level at a college level is better writing than a Reading Level at a tenth-grade level. This is not what this metric is measuring.

The only thing the Reading Level tries to do is give an indicator of the education level a person would need to have in order to understand the words you’re using in your writing. It’s not meant to be a ranking of your writing ability in any way. It’s simply a general guideline so you can anticipate what education level a person would need to have to understand what you have written.

WordCounter assesses Reading Level by using the Dale–Chall readability formula. This formula uses 3,000 common words a fourth grader should understand as its foundation. Basically, if you use only the words found in the list of 3,000 words when you write, your Reading Level rank will be at a fourth-grade level. As you use more words which are not on the list of 3,000 words, the Reading Level will increase. The more words you use that fall outside the core 3,000-word list, the higher level of reading the Reading Level feature will assign to your writing.

When you first begin to type in the text area, Reading Level will display as N/A. In order for a Reading Level to appear, you will need to write a minimum of two sentences. The number of sentences is part of the formula used, and the more sentences in the writing, the more accurate the Readability Level will be. There’s a need for a two-sentence minimum to begin to make an accurate Reading Level determination.

With this in mind, when the metric shows your writing at “college level,” what it’s saying is that you’re using a significant number of words in your writing which a fourth grader won’t be familiar with. If the Reading Level says fourth-grade level, then a fourth-grader would understand the vast majority of the words you used in your writing. If the metric says a seventh-grade level, you’re using some words that a typical fourth-grader wouldn’t understand, but not as many as would be in the writing to rank the Reading Level at the college level.

Reading Level may be important for a number of reasons. If you are attempting to target your article, story or other writing to a specific audience who may be at a certain reading grade level, this metric can help make sure you’re not writing over their heads. At the same time, you may not want your writing to come across as too simplistic by using only common words elementary students would understand, and want to raise the number and variety of vocabulary in your writing to appeal to a higher educated reader.

when i wrote this clearly rubbish sentence it took me from HS to college LOL:

“The interrelational level of the synaptic exchange between various idea that, in a post-structural sort of analysis, give way to all the meandering tropes which make up our existences through an intersectional framework all add to the propinquity of intradimensional experiences, all within a subpar trope that mellifluously delineates all our existences’ sakes. “

It’s due to the use of higher-level dictionary terms. While it is completely gibberish and makes no sense, passing the paragraph to a typical fourth grader would leave them rather confused about 90% of the words used; the metric uses what a fourth grader would typically understand as the baseline and goes up from there based on the commonality of words pulled from the dictionary it uses for the formula.

@schnee don’t mean to but coulnd’t help noticing your comprehensive skills when admin emphasized that this function is NOT “a writing level feature”. The fact that this software is freely available for us students to access and use is a huge blessing enough (thank you wordcounter team). You got to understand the costs involved with publishing a more enhanced version of this software unless you wanna help donate on behalf of us and I’ll rest my case. Why not make a trip to the nearest lecturer/ tutor/ teacher/ college-level human and get your document proofread there!

“The interrelational level of the synaptic exchange between various idea”
(if ideas is pluralized) = making mental connections to the exchange of ideas in a system of connected relationships

“that, in a post-structural sort of analysis,”
= using a post-structural approach, looking at the object itself and the cultural/historical context to reveal underlying structures of knowledge

“give way to all the meandering tropes which make up our existences”
= the exchange mentioned above could reveal a stream of cliches that define ourselves

through an intersectional framework
= considering all the aspects that make our identities and life experiences

all add to the propinquity of intradimensional experiences
= add to our closeness to experiences within this dimension or plane of existence

, all within a subpar trope that mellifluously delineates all our existences’ sakes
= using a faulty cliche that mellowly shapes the purpose of our experiences

Sooooo, you’re basically saying that if you use a “post-structural” approach to look at how people grasp exchanged ideas, you will find that there are a bunch of cliches believed by these people about themselves because of their set of identity traits, which add to the closeness to their experiences in this world through a lousy cliche that gives them purpose.

I took it down to high school level (I had to separate it into more than one sentence for it to register), but it does make sense (somewhat)! I’m not sure I agree that a post-structural approach is useful for that conclusion, but I do think that internalized tropes based on our intersectional traits dictate our own sense of purpose sometimes… Although something tells me that my interpretation of your intended thoughts may be a bit off! 🙂

Kaeli, you do realise that they spelled personification right and alteration is a real word and they might not have meant alliteration. I can’t help but think that if you’re going to be shady like that you’d at least point out their actual errors such as “collage” and “anoymus.” Just saying….

Dear ‘anoymos’
Considering the fact that you are learning about personification and what i’m assuming is alliteration when you are twelve makes it highly unbelievable that you are the smartest twelve year old in what i’m assuming is a first world developed country such as USA or England in which case if you were to be the smartest twelve year old there you would be far more advanced in the English language than to be going over some poetry terms of which that I learnt when I was 9. I live in New Zealand and am currently 13 and partaking in NCEA Level 1 English, level 2 Physics and History and Level 3 Maths, Biology and Chemistry. So I heavily doubt that you are “the best in the country” for your age.

Chanel No 1, please calm down. Yes, OP is probably not the most intelligent guy/girl ever, but neither are you. (I also live in New Zealand, and I’m studying second-year Engineering at Massey University at the age of 15.)

If you’re going to be condescending on the internet, at least use your real name.

Guys, You do realize there are other people with the name anonymous so he didn’t spell it wrong, it was just taken so he had to make another anonymous related name. Also he did spell Personification and Alteration right and it doesn’t have to be alliteration. and he might have had a typo or auto-correct or something make it collage, even on the computer it can happen. And yes, he may not be the smartest person in his country at his age, but I’m pretty sure none of you are either, but we all say to ourselves I am the best, I can make it. We encourage ourselves. Now quit discouraging this guy and let him be, because he doesn’t know all the words in the world and neither do any of you!!!! SO ENCOURAGE THIS MAN! YOU ARE THE SMARTEST AT YOUR AGE AND YOU CAN BECOME SMARTER AND MAKE IT THROUGH LIFE WITHOUT ALL THESE DISCOURAGERS AND HATERS STANDING IN YOUR WAY!!!!!

I know I sound a bit to dramatic and overprotective but I’m only saying this because y’all are dissing his thoughts and beliefs and his tiny little errors that he might not have made. I can’t help but think if y’all are gonna discourage him like that, you’d at least all try to be the best in your countries too. Which I’m not. And neither are any of you!

Guys just calm down this is site he just wanted to say something about the result he got on the site for his writing level. give him a break this is not about being the best in your country or what ever i am in an all French school where we have to learn all our english outside of school so most likely I have a whole bunch of mistakes and my sentences are too long but that doesnt matter. what matters is the message that he was trying to get accross like fiftey other prople writing comments on this page. Calm down!!!!!!!

I am 13 and quiet stupid for my age but I know not to pick on an innocent comment.

I’d like to point a few things out to you, as you seem to have a misconception. To begin with, college is spelled with an e, not an a, as you spelled it collage. That is an entirely different word that means a piece of art made by attaching pieces of paper, often from articles or magazines, to another sheet of paper. Next, anonymous, such as in your username, is actually spelled a-n-o-n-y-m-o-u-s, rather than anoymos. I also do not understand how spell check did not catch that, as while collage is a real word in the English language, anoymos is not. I am typing it here and spell check automatically changed it to anomy’s. I had to change it back.

I’m has a capital I and an apostrophe. You lack beginning-of-sentence capitalization and no period appears at the end. Also, best in the country by what standard? You should realize that, as I was 12 on March 8, 2016, I clearly have better spelling and grammar than you do, and therefore would be ahead of you according to whatever flawed ranking system you are using. Even if I am not first, you could never be, because I am ahead of you. Even if you were second, which is most certainly not correct, that’s still not first. I would then be. You should also realize that these kinds of rankings have ties of several hundred or thousand people. If you get a perfect score on a standardized test of some sort, you do not receive precedence in the ranking over all others with the same score. If that were true, I would be 1st in Michigan as far as 7th-grade ELA scores go, ahead of every single 7th grader in the state! There are quite clearly ties. How else would they establish first, second, and so on?

I must say, I detest nothing more than liars and tellers of untruths who brag about fake, easy to earn, and redundant accomplishments, or have overinflated egos but nothing to be proud of. How many of you can claim a 35 on ACT writing before 8th grade? How many can even claim that as juniors or seniors in high school?

Excuse you, I think being “the best in the country at your age” is a little bit off. Have you gone against any other 12 year-olds outside of your city? I think not. And if you HAVE, actually, used some sort of system that measured you against all those other 12 year-olds, please inform me, for I will gladly supply you with an apology.

Guys, this is a 12 year old we’re talking about. And those of you who are literally picking apart the entire sentence and username need to calm down lol. I’m betting that you were extra careful writing your corrections as you usually may write carelessly and more conveniently when writing in an informal tone on the internet.

Also none of you even considered the fact that they may be an international student who’s first language is not English. They may be at the top of their class or be ONE OF THE top students in their country for other reasons aside from their English skills, especially if that is not one of their core classes. And even so, who’s to say the country is not poor in education, top rank of a country does not mean the kid has top skills on a global scale.

The fact of the matter is, if you’re actually spending time correcting this kid and telling them that they are most definitely not at the top of their class then you’re being close minded and petty. Please find something better to do with your time.

I’m going to be completely honest here. I was actually the most intellgent pre-peubescent in the country. I boast prior Intelligence Quotients of 159 and 170 at the ages of 11 and 12, respectively. I received my Graduate Equivalent Diploma when I was still 12, and I began attending Moorpark College the next semester. Having received my Associate’s Degree from Moorpark, I transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (#3 undergraduate establishment in the world; #1 for undergraduate engineering and applied sciences) at the age of 14. Now completing my senior research at the age of 16, I am have undertaken immunooncology, the study of curing cancer through means of developing an immunity treatment that causes the T-Cells to fight off any cancerous cells. Anyways, so before I’m 18, I will already have a $100,000 job while all of you neanderthals are arguing about who has the ‘superior appendages.’ And anybody that does not understand what that means has no place to participate in an argument that relates to intelligence. I truly feel that our youth is spiraling into inadequacy. As quoted in Catch-22; “Some men are born mediocre. Some men achieve mediocrity, and others have mediocrity thrust upon them.” I’m sure anybody here could guess which group I believe demonstrates the “innovators of tomorrow.” (for anybody that does not understand this satire, the answer is the first clause).

Hey, look, y’all, calm down. It’s a 12-year old kid, and you guys are shooting him down. Maybe he’s not the best, but all of you responding aren’t either. I feel as if some of these answers have employed the usage of thesauruses to make you sound smarter.

Also, Anonymous who commented on January 3, 2017, you need to calm down too. Your post was simply stating how amazing you are at everything, and you need to realize that no matter how good you think you are, you are not the best. Yeah, I admit you’re pretty good at what you’re doing, but I can’t even say you’re telling the truth.

As you quoted, “Some men are born mediocre. Some men achieve mediocrity, and others have mediocrity thrust upon them.”

I feel as if in that quote you’re trying to say you’re a genius. Also, if y’all are going to pick me apart for defending one person who thinks he’s the best and tearing down another one – well, to that I say, one is twelve and one is 16 and obviously isn’t telling the truth.

Also, whoever posted the first comment was just playing around, and I don’t think what he did should create this huge swamp of people criticizing each other. Everyone, please calm down and stop boasting.

Okay guys, come on, a twelve year old simply felt like boasting, I mean, maybe his ego should take it down a notch, or two, or ten, regardless, no harm done, if he wants to be Donald Trump, then let him be Donald Trump (just stop him before he runs for president), as for you other boastful buffoons (and yes, I have good provocation to call you that) need to calm down, if you truly are a genius, then you would be out there helping people rather than picking on some poor (and mildly uninformed) kid about a claim that shouldn’t matter to anyone that actually has a life. Before you shred me to bits, keep in mind that every second you spend taking me out, you could be saving lives, or at least someone’s ego, I an specifically talking to you ‘Channel No 1’ and ‘Anonymous’. If you really feel you need to take someone’s ego down, do it to yourself first.

I believe you lads are getting baited. I believe even a 12-year-old could understand what the mysterious red line located under the mistakes would mean. And with so many mistakes within a single sentence, I doubt this could be a simple form of ironic stupidity. I’m sure their’s some child giggling on the other side of the screen at all of the replies he’s gotten from a simple comment.

Being the smartest 12 year old in your country must mean most of your country isn’t able to access proper education, considering the so called smartest 12 year old in it doesn’t know basic grammar and punctuation. I think by “country”, you meant “in my mind”.

In all honesty, why would some one on the internet looking at the word counter website not be able to recognize, “The dog eats sandwiches.” ? If you can not realize that it is super basic, then you should just get off this website, and stop trolling the Admin and let him do his job for the people who actually are having concerning problems. Thanks.

I wrote this and it said that im 11-12 grade
Hello my name is Noah and i’m from the Southern colonies which are Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. And i’m going to tell you about my trade, the process, my colonial life, and conclusion.Hello
So you’re probably thinking what my job is well i’m a tanner. That means that I tan leather and give it to the tailor and the tailor make shoes out of it or anything else made out of leather.

What I think it should do is ask for your grade level, then record the words you use, then if your grade level using a certain word enough it will add to the list, that way its like a self updating survey. This way it will truly every year know how smart, or stupid 4th graders – college people are.

I just typed 50 words and it said it was 9-10th grade:
First of all, its like stale bread with only 11 other players (to my 40) here except for a few totally fortunate people who typed in a bunch of random numbers. I don’t mean to boast, but it’s the unfortunate, sad, brutally truthful way to say. This is 50 words.

Select several 100-word samples throughout the text.
Compute the average sentence length in words (divide the number of words by the number of sentences).
Compute the percentage of words NOT on the Dale–Chall word list of 3,000 easy words.
Compute this equation
Raw score = 0.1579*(PDW) + 0.0496*(ASL) + 3.6365

Where:

Raw score = uncorrected reading grade of a student who can answer one-half of the test questions on a passage.
PDW = Percentage of difficult words not on the Dale–Chall word list.
ASL = Average sentence length
Finally, to compensate for the “grade-equivalent curve,” apply the following chart for the Final Score:

This system isn’t very good, as I was typing words basic middle school students should know, instead they commented that I’m at a college graduate level. Unless if this is counting people of which is below their reading level, it really needs to be fixed.

As a “middle school student” I was ALREADY reading “at a college level”, or close to it. Because I enjoyed reading, and would read a lot for pleasure outside of school.

Furthermore, students are regularly forced to encounter and learn new words and concepts as they go through a school year, with the aim of expanding their vocabulary. Indeed, even adults still continually learn new words as a reader, too. There is no reason that people can’t read “above” their “grade level”; in fact, such things are to be encouraged and celebrated. It’s more a matter of minimum requirements.

Reading Level should be considered not as the actual average reading capabilities at that grade (which will change over the course of the year anyway, and might change from year to year and also would be really hard to calculate, in comparison), so much as the MINIMUM education a person should be expected to ALREADY have, in order to understand a passage. But a person can be better-educated than the “minimum” standards, pretty easily. Especially in something like reading, where it’s fairly easy to expand your skills outside of school.

Therefore, you can write in a manner where, yes, most middle school students would understand it, but because you use a wider variety of vocabulary, the “bare minimum” expectation for education is raised, in terms of who you should RELY on being able to read it.

Just to provide an example, in fact, take the above text; the word variety is just enough that it says the Reading Level is 9th-10th Grade. But yes, the average middle schooler (which depending on your area, is either grades 6-8, 6-9, or 7 and 8) would likely have no problem comprehending it. Because it’s not about actual average reading ability at that “age”, it’s about the base level of suggested education someone of that level should have had by that point.

This is why they tell you not to worry THAT much about Reading Level; it’s only one component of your writing’s audience to consider. And honestly, unless you are writing a children’s book with explicit intent to be either comprehensible to those of a certain age or teach those of a certain age new words? It’s…nice to know, but probably not a big deal.

Unless you’re writing at “Grade 16” level and your audience is NOT people with PhDs, in which case dear god please rein it in a little, Mr. Joyce. 😛

tbh I think there is no sure way to determine complexity without a human, as complexity itself has many different parts, some which are not necessarily quantitative. therefore there is no exact equation that may be used to describe “complexity.”

btw i am in the 8th grade in a highly selective high school which has a lower acc rate than harvard univ. but still i dont think my writing, though better than most kids my age, has the level of “college graduate”. just sayin.

Correct, because you used many of the words not on the 3000-word list. It would have been different if you had written “I am me. I like cheese. I also like noodles. Corn is bad. My dog eats my corn.” which would rank 5th-grade level, but says basically the same thing.

It’s not “good” or “bad” — it simply tells you a person who has that level of education would likely be able to understand it and those at a lower grade level may have some difficulty in understanding it.

The more words used, the more accurate the reading level will be in most cases. For technical writing like on DNA the way to do it is to define the terms which are above their vocabulary in terms that are easy to understand. Then you would want to do a readability check with the DNA terms you defined absent since the reader should now understand the meaning of them.

I think that this should also take into account how short your sentences are, along with illogical words, and if you have strong diction or not. For example, “I showed the ytgab wrong. He did not like me. I frwag seld.” This would bring it up to a very high grade level, however, “showed” is quite weak. So is “used” and “utilized”. Those should bring down the points quite some, and using wrong words should also count.

I do not get the explanation. If you say that someone who reads what you wrote has to read at a college level, would that not automatically indicate that the writer is writing at a college level as well? I don’t get it.

If you use more words that aren’t found in the 3000 word list for 4th graders, it will increase the reading level. While it’s easy to manipulate this score, that’s not what it’s for. It’s to give you a general idea of who can read your writing when you write naturally.

It’s not that it doesn’t work, it’s that the formula depends on word count. Typing one sentence and basing your judgment of the programming on that is foolish on your part. It says right in the explanation that the longer the written work, the more accurate it will be.

That is because it needs a larger sample environment. I’m seriously surprised so many people aren’t understanding that…

I typed an original story of 496 words (up to 600) for SOTA Creative Writing 2016, I am primary 6 (6th Grade) in Singapore, and composed that type of story (I woke up but it wasn’t a dream) and found out that type was for Sec 3 to Sec 4 (9th to 10th grade). *unbelievable*

We have started to add more common words to the list (mostly conjunctions, plurals and different tenses of the 3000 words already on the list) to try and make it more accurate. This may have changed the reading level.

Ummmm yeh I’m in year 8 at school and I’m not complaining, well not really but i pasted my english essay into it, and every few minutes it changes between 11th-12th grade and college graduate, but totally skips college level. This happened to my friend too. Why is this happening?

I really do love this feature, but I only find it useful when writing non-fiction for school essays. I do a lot of fantasy writing and I find it hard to gage my writing’s level because I am using words that don’t exist because it’s the name of objects, places, creatures and worlds that don’t exist. If I took Erin Hunter’s Warriors, which can be comprehended by a 2nd grader, it would be drastically changed because of the vocabulary used by the cats to describe the things around them (Road=Thunderpath Human=Twoleg Flu=Greencough Noon=Sunhigh) Harry Potter would also be a great example and find itself with a very unfair upgrade. The words used in these books aren’t found in the Dale-Chall formula because they are words that don’t normally exist in the English language. I understand how hard to it to program for these kinds of things, but I do find it frustrating sometimes.

“If you find it frustrating, just don’t use it and stop complaining and taking your problems out on other people”

This is almost as bad as the ‘if you have nothing nice to say, then don’t say anything at all’ argument. It’s nothing more than an attempt at deflecting criticism. It’s constructive criticism, too. The commenter wrote about, in detail, the limitations he/she encountered in regard to the system. That’s called ‘constructive critcism’, which is more helpful than any amount of praise. Mere praise is substanceless and says nothing. On the other hand, constructive critcism gives way to perpetual improvement. It feels nice to be praised, sure, but it isn’t helpful. And it may feel bad to be critcised, but it is helpful if you understand what you should be doing to remedy the issue. You could even say that the people who only praise you don’t care enough about you to recognise and/or help you improve your flaws. People who give a lot of constructive criticism devote their own time to improving someone else’s creation. If all humans seek validation, affirmation and understanding, constructive criticism is the purest form of that. Ironically, pure praise is hardly anything like that. Usually, the best kind of constructive criticism is also peppered with positivity AND praise. Praise on its own is substanceless, but when it’s used with constructive criticism, it becomes useful. This is what @Nerdy-Kat129 has done.

It turns out that nothing could really be done about it, but should he/she really be denied their right to voice their opinion because they don’t ‘have anything nice to say?’ No, I don’t believe so. There was no rude conduct whatsoever in their comment, and it’s still helpful for fantasy writers reading it that may not have considered the possibility. I don’t understand why you ignored the majority of the comment in favour of focusing on the last four words. Constructive criticism can be sseen as complaining, I guess, since all criticism is complaining at heart–but that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. The irony is that you’re substancelessly complaining about another comment with actual substance that is complaining about the feature. That part about ‘taking your problems out on other people’ sounds like a stock phrase you just threw in there without really understanding what it meant. It’s just some light criticism, nothing more. Don’t take it so personally or so seriously.

And don’t take this comment aggressively, because I’m not being aggressive. If I was being aggressive, it would be lined with far more colourful language.

This website is wonderful, thank you. Also, I do not understand how people do not understand the “Reading Level” function. The Author explains it clearly in the original post. Also, before commenting, one should read through the other comments to avoid being redundant. I saw the same question asked 6 different times by 6 different people. A question that is clearly explained in the beginning anyhow. I mean…you all know how to read, correct? 🙂

This is an awesome system, I’ll give you that, but I myself was very concerned when my 200 word small essay was rated as college level. After a small research, I discovered that the reason for this was that I was writing in Finnish therefore every word was outside the 3 000 words of a fourth grader. Other than using a foreign language, I think this website in genius and I plan to use it when actually writing something in English!

I literally wrote the title and it said college student. I like the unique tool, but I don’t think it is very reliable. I love the website though.
My title, however, was: What are the writer’s thoughts and feelings on ‘The Merchant of Venice’?

It is (almost) impossible to make a really good reading level thingy. i wrote “Insidious potatoes, insulated rueing, altruistic spellchecker, current affairs. ” and copy/pasted it many times. gave me a college graduate level. Pasted my essay, and it gave me college graduate. I’m not even the equivalent of 10th grade…

The idea behind this is nice, but I don’t think it provides any useful information whatsoever. I can see the potential, but at its current state it will only manage to befuddle a user if anything.

Main problems are that it doesn’t recognise plural form/passive form of words, and that the whole 3k word concept is a little silly to begin with. Having multiple dictionaries (one for each level) would work much better. But yeah, i don’t know if you can find word lists like that..

Plural thing example:

I like apple. I hate bee. I love girl. <4th Grade
I like apples. I hate bees. I love girls. 11-12th Grade

Seriously, I found the Math Captcha harder to cypher than the idea of reading levels. I popped in to see if there was a rating above College Level, and was surprised at some of the criticism people type.

After using this website for two years, about 100 times, I can say that it does work. Sometimes my writing comes out College on the first time; others, it can be 9/10 or 11/12th grade; I’ll use the word frequency feature, include common words, and am usually surprised to see how many times I used “the, and, from”.

After a little editing, I’ll remove some words, rewrite/substitute this and that, and watch the writing level increase.

Dear Word Counter. The reading level rating is an great feature but when i get up to two sentences its says “collage graduate”. Even when i type in things like for an example ” The dogs eats sandwiches”. Is it something wrong with my computer or is this för everyone?

ump actually everyone is frustrated that they are getting high levels for simple writing. Seriously people just stop complaining. Admin can’t do anything about the fact that you don’t suck. If you are just going to keep complaining please stop. If you hate it that much either stop using the website or just make your own if your that smart because hey everyone is write. Everyones getting college graduate aren’t they??? 😐

Hi there. Here to voice my appraisal for this website (despite what all you negative people above are saying).
I am using this to aid in writing my book and I am really pleased with it’s software. This has helped me structuralise and manage the content of the book I am currently in progress of writing. Keep up the good work, site admins! 🙂

yeah, I wish everyone would just STOP COMPLAINING. as if they could do any better. This is actually a really smart website and if you think it’s not then just stop acting as if you’re so smart because unless you can make a new better website, you can’t be that smart.

I typed in this, “”A dog akuefbaubdmcjbk sandwiches.”Saijsbuffebw fjskefbhfhe dog. Wilfred said i jslifdw ej hfilsie jjufbaekd v”, after reading some of the comments and indeed is said I am a college graduate. I believe you need to rethink your reading level.

My writing level is usually 9/10th grade but sometimes if I put some effort, I get 11/12th grade. BUT it’s killing me how my friends most of the time gets 11/12th and hardly anything lower than that- their lowest would be 9/10th. I keep asking myself what I’ve been doing wrong. As a writer, it kind of makes me feel small.

It’s important for someone to do their research before putting discouraging posts on someone’s website that show nothing more or less than your own inability to read. The administrator of this site made it very clear what the so-called “readability” level is. This is not a random or arbitrary score given by this website. It is a scale invented by Dale and Chall in 1945 and updated 50 years later. It has been accepted by statisticians and linguists as an accurate estimate (note, not exact end-all-beat-all fact, just an estimate) of what level an individual’s reading capacity would need to be in order to understand 100% of the document. I know that, for myself, I was reading on a high school level by kindergarten, but my little brother who is in middle school struggles to read on-grade-level books. Meanwhile, he was helping me with my high school math homework when he was not even in school yet. Everyone’s mind is wired differently. This scale in no way suggests that you (the reader) could not read more than 3,000 basic words by fourth grade or that you (the writer) are not able to write to your target audience. This scale is more of a measurement of the commonality of the words you use and the length of your sentences than it is a measurement of your “ability”. Then again, if you are one of those who thinks the system is broken because you typed in so much nonsense and were told that you must be a college graduate clearly lack the ability to read this article (which is on an 11th-12th grade level). To write at a 4th grade level, your words need to (on average) be shorter than 4 letters, while to write on a college graduate level, they only need to be (on average) about 5 letters long. This is a consistent trend that can be measured, so for those of you who think you can make a paper or short story “higher level” by using bigger words, there is minimal evidence of this. Better to stick with how you can write comfortably and leave the administrator of this site be. (Note, I write most comfortably between a 9th and 12th grade level. If you read this thinking “wow, he’s a hypocrite, using a bunch of big words and long sentences just so he can sound more “complicated”, this passage ranked at 11th-12th grade, and that’s where I like it!)

Thank you Linguist! I was getting tired of scrolling through the SAME comments looking for anything USEFUL! You nailed it!
To the young folks, in the future, consider taking time to read through previous comments before repeating and arguing about an issue that has already been addressed. Thanks.

yes, omg. That is so true, its actually so annoying that people are so stupid today.
I’m only 12 years old, and let me tell all you negative people out there who have nothing better to do with their lives than post negative comments on a smart website that you can not use, then you are a waste of space and your wasting your breath. The admins on this website have to keep replying to your stupid posts, just scroll up and you’ll be able to see 5000000000 of the same frickin’ questions – all negative might i add. Just get a life and stop ruining other peoples including the admins who have just created this website for people who are going to use it and find it useful, not for people who just complain about it the whole time.

I like roses. Roses are red. Red roses have thorns. Roses can be pink. Pink roses are pretty. I like pink roses.
I’m sorry but there is no way the above sentences does not make 4th grade.
Red, roses, thorn, and like are all words used in dr Seuss books. I see absolutely no reason this qualifies as high school intellect requirements. I understand the basics of what has been discussed above, but I believe until this bug is fixed, it might be best to advise it’s broken or remove it. As all I have to say is green eggs and ham would likely generate a higher level when only two random versus of…
I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them
anywhere.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am
Rates as 5-6 th grade.

It’s fantastic that you have put together a tool like this. I like to know the reading level so I’m not writing in a way that others won’t be able to understand. It’s a great resource and helps me make sure I’m writing at the correct level.

I love how all these keyboard warrior kids think using big words and sophisticated paragraphing techniques gives them the status of a college graduate, when in reality, in higher education, you get awarded more marks and get given better results for writing in a more simple fashion so anyone who reads it will have a better understanding, in other words getting your point across to everyone. What use is it being smart and pompous when only 3 people can understand wtf you’re talking about.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, or at least i haven’t noticed being mentioned is that sentence length seems to play a role, so if someone blotches their sentence with comma splices and other errors it will raise the reading level. one way to test this is to simply write the word “the” a bunch of times, adding periods through out; the more periods the shorter the sentences the lower the reading level, less periods longer sentences higher reading level. While i agree that college and university students and graduates to write longer sentences, i don’t think it should be a part of the reading level as it may encourage other to comma splice or otherwise inappropriately combine two independent clauses.

I am a 7th grader writing a book report on the spy so far i have 714 words and 3848 characters and it says the level is 11-12th i really dont belive it at all :/ but i like the feature its pretty cool i just wish it worked better

This records the reading level of your book report, not your writing level. People reading your book report may need a minimum requirement of 11-12th high school education or higher to understand 100% of your work. This does not matter in your case, as your teacher or instructor should already be finished with high school.

I’ve been using Word Counter for the last three years, at least, to help me along as I write fiction. Keeping a reliable word and page count has made my life so much easier. I was nothing short of thrilled when I discovered the auto-save function — much more reliable than Word for my scatterbrained self. Not to mention the keyword density, arguably my favourite of the available features. I’d always been curious about the reading level function. Thank you for this article, for your endless patience, and for this tool!

Does this tool work with foreign languages ? I wrote a long text in French and this said this was college graduate level so i assume this is not working with french, does someone knows were i could actually find such a useful tool for other languages than English. thanks

My writing level is much higher than 7th grade! This tool sucks. How dare you tell me that my writing level is at a 7th grade when I’m in college. I wouldn’t be in college if I could only write at a 7th grade level. This is a disgrace!

I can’t believe the amount of stupidity in the comments here. This is a tool that gives you an estimate on what level student would be able to understand your writing. Of course, you can manipulate it to come up with unrealistic reading levels. That doesn’t mean that the tool is useful. Maybe if all of you spent more time trying to improve your writing rather than trying to find ways to manipulate the formula you would be doing better in school.

I typed in an obviously stupid sentence (with an okay one as well), and the result was college graduate. The thing I typed in was as follows:
“Zia Rey had finally exited the hospital with her son and her friend.
DOGGIES. IS. MY. LIFEY. YEEEEEE. HUEHUEHUEHE. ME. HATEY. DAWGIE-WAHGGYS. ME WUFFY-CHUFFY. KITTY POO POO PIEZ.”
(Don’t judge me.)
That was college graduate.
Alright. That happened.

When will this feature be corrected? I literally typed in “Yejh uwiwejhu hwr oerwoj foew. ewifw jimef w. ji wifuew df.” and it said “College Graduate”. Granted, I am a college graduate, but this is pure gibberish. Lol.

I wrote this : dark souls. dark souls. dark souls. and it gave me a college graduate and I tried refreshing the page as well but it still gave me college graduate (I’m using Microsoft edge if you are wondering)

This is an interesting tool. I think the reading level feature is beneficial, but I’d like to see a writing level tool as well. That would be great and would help a lot to improve my writing. Then I’d know if I was writing at my grade level or above.

This reading level tool is an excellent idea but I think it needs some fine-tuning. It distinguishes only between two kinds of words: 4th-grader words and not 4th-grader words.

That means that if you use enough words a fifth-grader ought to know, it will still rate it as college-level reading, not fifth-grade reading.

Now of course it would be a monstrously ambitious project to rate EVERY word in the English language as a specific grade level, but if this was at least done for a set of common enough words (500~1000 per grade level past 4th), then it would already significantly improve the accuracy of the rating. All words that aren’t given such a rating can safely be assumed to be college-level vocabulary because they’re too obscure for the raters to have remembered.

Word counter is really useful though, especially for the school essays and project. I just wish I actually understood what the grades mean. It’ll help a lot ((especially since I keep forgetting and start typing in short forms, it shows me the spelling errors)) xD

Dear admin, have you considered using the reading level to augment the reading speed (i.e. to use it as a multiplier)? Technical papers would certainly be ranked at colleague graduate level, simply because of the density of jargons used. Reading speeds would be lower in such instances. Kindly consider.

While not exactly what you’re requesting here, you can adjust the reading speed manually (Click on Options, then Details — find Reading Speed and click on the wrench next to it). This will allow you to adjust the reading speed higher or lower depending on your needs.

If you write in any language other than English, you’ll get a college graduate rating because the system is based on 3000 common English words. If you’re writing German, you would not be using any of them.

ok, this has apparently nothing to do with the reading level, but I have one problem. I was typing an essay for school and I went to another tab to do some research. When I went back to the Word Counter tab, the number of words dropped from 528 to 502. So now I’m quite confused which number of word I should use… Other than that, Word Counter has been a great help!!!

Perhaps you should stick the word “Beta” after the Reading Level feature on the count page. It might cut down on the number of times you have to explain the same exact thing over and over and over and over again. They’ll just go “Oh, it’s in Beta”, and move on with their lives. Considering how stupid some of these responses I’ve read so far have been, it’s pretty likely. Kinda like how when Valve stuck the random stick things on the back of Chell’s legs in Portal, and playtesters stopped asking how she survived dropping so far.

This tool isn’t exactly correct. You should fix it. If I can manipulate it to get a higher reading level, then I can never be sure it’s the correct reading level. You should make it so it can;t be manipulated. Then we can trust it!

This load of garbage is apparently college grad level:
The dog eats sandwiches through which quantum entanglement causes apocalyptic flame to spew from the ashes of the nether worlds. Although obscene and vulgar the knowledge of wherewith the sacrament of illogical catalysts register a sense of zen. Hereupon, let it be known that although mortal knowledge is easy to acquiesce it is indeed a gem of the froth of power.

Wow.
Wow can a word counter site create so much hate?!
I LOVE IT!
Keep going you keyboard warriors! 🙂
You bring so much joy to the world.
PSYCH! you guys have no lives, just like Poke hunters have no lives.
Get out of your mom’s basement, you’re 34 and a half, obese and without friends
(HINT: get some friends, and a life (visit black.market.international to buy some friends if you cant make any)).

This is apparently college graduate type of work:
.Uay vary VARY VARY correact stoary.
Bi ASHY LENE
once there was a bad guy named tomooogoa. he likwed to eat liattle hippos and techers. he had very avanded ways of catchibg thim.
hippos were not very smaert so theay ware eaesily cauight.
Look at the spidaer on may waell. And me scquished it and now it’s daed. Me I’mn hungary. Oh lookit the pretti lamp. Sicccors are very danugerous. You cannot keep thim aeround hippos.

Everyone leaving a comment here is so pretentious. Who cares if you’re a 4th grader with a 12th grade reading level. That means NOTHING kiddo. This website is an excellent tool for writing essays, not to brag about how smart you think you are. The reading level thing is just an algorithm to give you a basic approximation. Of course it’s not going to be perfect.

For my GCSE photography course we had to write about a photographer of our choice, so i wrote it in word counter just so i could estimate the amount of room i would need/how many pages i would need to fit my writing in. When i had done 86 words i looked across and it said my writing level was a 4th grade, i then went downstairs to get a drink. My cat walked on my laptop, specifically the ‘x’ key. When i got back i noticed my kitty had added ‘x x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x x x x x’ etc my writing level went up to a college student. Not trying to bash here, just stating my experience

This is because the program does not recognize misspelled words, in this case, the word, or letter, ‘x’, as part of the 3000 common words it uses to determine readability, and therefore thinks you use lots of hard to understand, or ‘College Level’ words.

Huh, this word counter actually recognizes that using simple to read and concise sentences is college level writing. I wrote a really simple blurb for my music theory class and was just checking the word count when the reading level surprised me.
“The beat unit for simple meters is a non dotted quarter note. Examples of simple meters include, 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4. The beat unit for compound meters is a dotted quarter note. Examples of compound meters include 3/8, 6/8, and 9/8,
The natural subdivision of a simple meter is a quarter note into two eighth notes. A half note in simple meter could be subdivided into 4 eighth notes. The natural subdivision of a compound meter is a dotted quarter note into a triplet of eighth notes. A dotted half note in compound meter could be subdivided into 6 eighth notes.
The simple 2/4 meter is most closely related to the compound 6/8 meter. 2/4 contains 2 pulses of quarter notes per measure, while 6/8 contains 2 pulses per measure as well, except the beat is on a dotted quarter note instead.
The 3/4 simple meter is most closely related to the compound 9/8 meter. 3/4 contains 3 pulses of quarter notes per measure, while 9/8 contains 3 pulses of dotted quarter notes per measure.
The 4/4 simple meter is most closely related to the compound 12/8 meter. 4/4 contains 4 pulses of quarter notes per measure, while 12/8 contains 4 pulses of dotted quarter notes per measure.
While playing music, I prefer simple meter, as it is easier to read and interpret, and pieces tend to be written in simple meter anyways. I do enjoy listening to compound meter, where it is easier to write swing rhythms whatnot. I do not have any real preference for either kind of meter, both are important parts of music.
Washington Post March by John Philip Sousa is an example of a piece in compound meter (6/8).
Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin is an example of a piece in simple meter (4/4).”
Really, some kid in elementary school band should be able to understand this … music harder than writing confirmed??? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Admin: I think a link to the 3000 words would stop the same questions repeated over and over and over and over and over and ……. I’m sure you get it. If you put a link in the article and said it was a list of 3000 words expected to be known by grade ? (age ?) in the USA (?) you might not find yourself answering the same question again and again.

I am assuming it’s a US list because of your use of ‘grade’ and not age. This means writing in ‘English English’ words such as ‘colour’ (color) and many more, will not be on the list either, I’m guessing..?

Is there a standardised list for other grades in the US or are all other levels calculated purely by the equation (words per sentences etc.) you have written above? I’m just curious there – I’m from the UK.

I like the site, this is actually the first time I’ve been concerned with reading level – I’m trying to simplify what I’m writing, but mostly that’s ensuring medical terminology is understood by using the commonly used word in parenthesis afterwards – e.g. scapula (shoulder blade), so unless I removed all the medical terms to test it I’m not going to get a different result. Reading time and words per sentence, number if sentences etc. is more helpful while I’m comparing various options for a collaborative piece of writing.

I clicked to see how the reading level was assessed, to see how/ if I should try other ways to lower it, but it’s not necessary. I scrolled through the comments section and thought I’d add a positive comment noting how useful the tool is when it’s used correctly and understood because of the number of comments basically showing people don’t seem to understand the explanation fully.

I’m a linguist (psycho-neuro-cognitive linguist, specifically, at postgrad level) so I suggest an example often used in distinguishing between syntax and semantics – at the basis of the argument ‘what is a sentence?’ – Usually described as a grouping of words that adheres to grammatical rules in a language and makes sense. Noam Chomsky (‘father of modern linguistics’) proved a sentence could be completely correct in its use of syntax, but entirely nonsensical, semantically: “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” One of the most famous linguists, Steven Pinker uses the example in his popsci book, The Language Instinct and it’s constantly used in linguistic arguments. I’m aware you may know all this, having created this site, but if not, it is an example that is easy to look up if you wanted to add to your explanation of the difference between reading level and writing level – anyone can stick that specific sentence into Google and read 40 years of linguistic debate.

Sorry, just thinking……… while procrastinating over the actual writing I’m trying to do that doesn’t interest me, whereas this analysis does. Good site!

To be honest, I persuaded myself to not comment after viewing some of the ridiculous comments in response to this article. I originally used this site to check the word count on a piece of writing I was assigned to complete in my English class. I spotted the reading level as I read the word count. However, I became very offended when it claimed my writing was at seventh to eighth grade reading level. To familiarize you with myself, I am an eleventh grade student who skipped a year of school and is one of the smartest in my honors classes. I have scored immensely well on the SAT writing portion and as a seventh grader and as an eleventh grader. Without exception, I scored an A on my pieces of writing for school. As a curious and inquiring mind, I decided to test the authenticity of the reading level. The following was considered college level: “Hence, heathens stood lackadaisically. Therefore, dauntless must diverge.” A few of you might see some familiar words in those two sentences. The first is an allusion to the song “Heathens” from the movie, “Suicide Squad,” contains my favorite word (a form of lackadaisical), and also alluded to a viral post about the number of degrees required for ‘hence’ not to be considered plagiarism. The second is a reference to the book “Divergent” by Veronica Roth. Due to sheer insanity and boredom, I decided to see the reading level on this comment and it was considered an eleventh to twelfth grade reading level.

Many people are immune to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis but some times pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is very common especially around volcanos. It’s due to the use of higher-level dictionary terms. While it is completely gibberish and makes no sense, passing the paragraph to a typical fourth grader would leave them rather confused about 90% of the words used; the metric uses what a fourth grader would typically understand as the baseline and goes up from there based on the commonality of words pulled from the dictionary it uses for the formula. “The interrelational level of the synaptic exchange between various idea that, in a post-structural sort of analysis, give way to all the meandering tropes which make up our existences through an intersectional framework all add to the propinquity of intradimensional experiences, all within a subpar trope that mellifluously delineates all our existences’ sakes. “ Many accoutrements are used for gasconading. always stay equanimity when going through pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

Do not take this as criticism it is simply an idea. What if you also took in the vocabulary from the grade textbooks as they usually have very specific words or even use the words from them in general as I have noticed each year they subtly increase in vocabulary strength. Also anyone whom wants to complain please read all other comments as they have repeated the same complaints various times. Leave the creators alone as this idea is quite amazing and stop repeating complaints as this is no longer constructive and is simply annoying.

A few summers ago – I don’t remember which year – there was a period of time at the airport where we could ride in a small, four-seat plane. I sat in the copilot’s seat, and even got to fly the plane alone! For about thirty seconds, but it felt like hours!

5-6 grade

A few summers ago – I don’t remember which year – there was a period of time at the airport where we could ride in a small, four-seat plane. I sat in the copilot’s seat, and even got to fly the plane alone! For about thirty seconds, but it felt like hours! Ever since, I have loved any type of flying- Flying on a commercial or private plane, watching a commercial or private plane fly, or even watching birds fly.

Most the people (not counting the people with common sense) on here seem to think that computer AI systems can calculate the same way that humans can. It’s very simple. If you are in college you can still write an elementary level novel if you use the words learned in the average elementary school. This AI doesn’t care about your writing style or how many times you repeat a word. It does not understand your mockery, it just wants to be friendly. Don’t judge it by it’s face value. It’s a tool to judge your writing so you judge who your future audience will be. Now I sound like one of those douches who answer yahoo answers. Thank you society for forcing me to put training wheels on your bicycles.

elucidate ones mental state in its highest form of mastery as one when combined with thermodynamic fusion and chemical entropy. As the mass-energy equivalence of our geometric majesty reaches heights not seen since the coming of enlightenment when we reached that pinnacle of human endeavour we shall see the glorious coming of the most radiant of them.

We shall be masters of reality as we strive to the betterment of glorious hydrophilic ant men

I think it worked perfectly for me. I heard somewhere that a newspaper is written at a 5th-6th grade reading level, so that just about anyone who knows how to read at a 5th grade level can comprehend it. That makes perfect sense to me. They are trying to make it so that the highest number of people possible can understand what is going on in the world, and also that makes their potential subscriber base larger.

I just wrote an article for my blog and it ranked it at a 5th-6th grade reading level. It seems to line up perfectly with the way I wrote my article, since I also wrote it so that as many people possible can read and comprehend it. I think this is a great tool. I originally just for the word counter, but found the other features interesting so I tried them.

Yeah i felt like I was writing a very intricate novel and it said I had a level of 7th-8th grade which I am in 8th grade but take Honors classes and it usually says my level is 11th-12th grade I don’t understand

I’m 13 and in 7th grade and I have a college reading level.
Just saying that I wrote:
I like Artichokes. I like smears of saltine fish on moldy grains of grainy sand. Take your pregnant female dog and stick her in a whelping box in a contained area.

It said that this was “college graduate”.
Also I like dogs and read big books about them so I knew these words.

I love that so many of these people that left a comment, either spelled something wrong or used incorrect grammar while saying something about someone else doing that exact thing. Really, to all the people who were being nice, thank you for not being a petty internet troll. YOU are important to this world!!

EJ, If your 1 word was college level, then that makes 100% of words (1) in the story is college level, making the story college level. If have a college level word and a 4th grade level word then 50% of the words (2) are college level, making the story 8th grade level. You see how it works? It’s basic mathematics.

Wordcounter.net is something I use rather frequently, I am a thirteen year old girl, who loves to write a read. I have to write thousands of words or hundreds everyday. So thank you, admin, for making wordcounter.

All of the people on here are just trying to manipulate the system, when really it’s just a tool to try and help people. Honestly, it’s a little thing on the side of a word counter website, and this article has 200+ comments?! Seriously? = |